Hey all,Hope you're doing well and I see that some of the old-timers are still going strong Please let me know if you have any recommendations for audit firms in Singapore to audit a recruitment agency (small business).TIAKim

carteki wrote:Hey all,Hope you're doing well and I see that some of the old-timers are still going strong Please let me know if you have any recommendations for audit firms in Singapore to audit a recruitment agency (small business).TIAKim

carteki wrote:Hey all,Hope you're doing well and I see that some of the old-timers are still going strong Please let me know if you have any recommendations for audit firms in Singapore to audit a recruitment agency (small business).TIAKim

Hello stranger! Welcome back!

To answer your question, any CPA firm can do an audit. Even the firm that handles the company's regular books can also be the auditor if there is an arm's length distance between the bookkeeper and auditor. There is information somewhere on the ACRA website. Exempt private limited's do not require an audit, they would do so to be able to present a better set of financial statements to banks and potential suppliers, customers, even, who want to know the viability of the company.

Although not required of exempt private limited's, we had our books audited every year. My only recommendation would be to check out S B Tan and Company, my former CPA (https://sbtan.com/)

An audit is simply a professional opinion about the inherent completeness and correctness of the books. As such, transaction, the P&L, the balance sheet, and off book items are all reviewed.

Let's look at transactions, for a moment. Let's say that you had 1,000 $10 transactions and total revenue of $10,000. There would be nothing to report, you sold 1,000 widgets, nothing special. But, let's say you sold those 1,000 widgets for $10 and you had one large transaction for $10,000. Now, you have something that an audit would report, for it doubles revenues with a single transaction.

There would be a footnote in the audit report describing this one off transaction so that anybody reviewing the financials would quickly understand if this was a one time thing or might be expected to continue into the future.

Similarly, if the company provides a service over time but receives revenue up front, GAAP requires that the revenue be recognized only when the service is provided. An audit report would make note of total revenues, recognized revenues, cash balances, and a liability account for services yet to be delivered.

This is actually a huge problem area. CFO's wanting to make the monthly or quarterly "numbers" are often tempted to stick unrecognized revenues into the current quarter, while pushing expense recognition into the next quarter, in order to make the net profit look good. It's a game and a good auditor will report if revenues and expenses are properly reported and matched.

An audit report would make note of the quality of your assets. If you're carrying a ten year old PC on the books at $10,000, the auditor would want to ensure that it was properly depreciated and that you had the documentation to back up the valuation. The auditor would also take a look at your loan status... you might have a loan on your books for $10,000 but if it's past due and in danger of being called, this would be noted in the audit report.

And finally, the auditor looks at off book items. For example, contingent liabilities. My company agree to sign off for an EP for a man that didn't work for the company. This gave the company a potential loss of $3,000... were the man to violate his employment terms, I'd have to pay the bond.

So, any CPA is good, the CPA currently doing the books can perform an audit, so long as it is different persons not normally associated with the account, audits are not required for exempt private limited's in general (there are exceptions).

Thank you SE. I am aware of the audit requirements in Singapore, however as this is a subsidiary of an international company and they want the audit. They are having difficulties with their current auditors and are looking to change, so I thought I'd reach out to this community.AnonKim

Well, my old CPA was pretty thorough with the audits. At my company, our policy was always to scan receipts, then toss the originals... you know that a taxi receipt fades to white in about six weeks. SHe always made a footnote in my financials that original receipts were not available, even though I had scans of everything!